A workable theory
Atlas Obscura recently posted an article about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, which we have written about before. It has long been regarded as gibberish, but Grzegorz Kondrak, a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence, thinks he might have cracked the code...
The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne
Sally Thorne's The Hating Game borrows heavily from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I applaud Ms. Thorne's taste in inspirational material, but her book serves as a reminder of how much more there is to Pride and Prejudice than than the romantic storyline. Don't get me wrong: I'm as big a Lizzy/Darcy shipper as the next nerd, but if you stripped their story down to a series of squabbles, mistakes, and inept courting, it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne
This week's Book Giveaway is Sally Thorne's novel The Hating Game. It's the first in a month-long series of romance novel reviews, all of which I have chosen based on recommendations from this post. (It's a change from my Target Method, but one must live dangerously.) A full review will be posted shortly...
Tattoos for the indecisive
And speaking of fashion, I also love these temporary tattoos featuring the artwork of Oliver Jeffers, the illustrator of The Day the Crayons Quit...
100% would watch
Go Fug Yourself recently featured a couture fashion show by Chinese designer Guo Pei (best known for Rihanna's Met Gala gown a few years ago), and it was glorious. I don't know anything about high fashion, but...
Award-worthy
The first pictures are out from the upcoming movie adaptation of Angie Thomas's much-buzzed-about debut novel The Hate U Give. I still haven't read this book (though I mean to!), but the movie adaptation has attracted a great cast...
Don't understand
And the first trailer is out for the upcoming Jack Ryan TV show, based on the Tom Clancy novels and starring John Krasinski. I find Krasinski far more charming than Tom Cruise, but was this series really crying out...
Hopefully it makes loads of money
The first trailer is out for Ant-Man and the Wasp. It's apparently the first Marvel film to name a female character in the title, so: yay for progress! On the other hand, I...
Runaways: An Original Novel, by Christopher Golden
I'm not totally sure what “Original Novel” means to the bigwigs at Marvel, but that's the slightly misleading phrase they're using to describe Christopher Golden's new book Runaways. (I guess “Transparent Cash Grab” didn't fit on the cover.) Golden's book doesn't seem to be a direct relation of either the rebooted comics or the recent TV adaptation, but rather a story that branches off from an early volume of Brian K. Vaughn's original series...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Runaways, by Christopher Golden
This week's Book Giveaway is Marvel's Runaways, by Christopher Golden. It has "An Original Novel" as its official subtitle, which is a little confusing: it's based on the Marvel comic series of the same name, but it appears to operate independently from the storylines created in either the comics or the TV adaptation. A full review will follow shortly, but be warned: it will be rife with possibly confusing spoilers for fans of this story's other formats...
Ugh, no way.
I just ran across a review for the movie Colette, starring Keira Knightley and inspired by the life of the famous French author. I had no idea this movie was a thing, and while I see the reviewer describes the film as "politely sexy", I have my doubts that a biography of Colette could be anything other than profoundly depressing...
Cute~
I like these "Hero Bookends" from Uncommon Goods. (There's a "Heroine" one, too, don't worry.) They're cute, eye-catching, and, at $25, they'd make reasonably priced gifts...
Sure, why not?
According to Deadline, Legendary Entertainment has picked up the rights to Claire McFall's YA trilogy Ferryman, with an eye towards turning it into a create a franchise. I haven't read the books, but the article offers a nice summary...
Painful
Ouch: a bookstore in Bangor, Maine, suffered a massive loss recently when a water main burst near the building, seeping into the basement and destroying a number of rare books. The damage included dozens of first- and limited-edition Stephen King books, as well as...
Could be worse
Last week it was announced that George Clooney's upcoming miniseries adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 has been picked up by Hulu. I'm having trouble imagining how well Heller's story will translate to TV, but if I had to pick someone to direct it, I probably would have chosen...
The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories, by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris's The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories is a collection of nine short stories and a novella. I'm not sure how hardcore Sookie Stackhouse junkies will feel about this book, but as a casual fan I actually found it more fun than a full-length novel—it offers a tantalizing glimpse of Harris's characters and world-building, but you get to skim over all the tedious background drama created by thirteen books' worth of storytelling...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories, by Charlaine Harris
This week's Book Giveaway is Charlaine Harris's The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories. Considering the popularity of this series, I'm always surprised by the homemade vibe of the cover art, which feels like something designed by an artsy middle school student. (But what do I know? Clearly, these books sell just fine.) Our full review will be posted soon...
This is our lives now
Slate informs me that The Wire creator David Simon announced that he is adapting Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America into a six-part miniseries. I haven't read this book, but it's apparently an alternate history in which aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh...
Saga, the musical?
Man, Brian K. Vaughan is having a moment: first Runaways on Hulu is a success, and now there are rumors floating around that Lin-Manuel Miranda might, just possibly, one day adapt Vaughan's space-opera comic series Saga into a musical...
No singing!
According to Deadline, Masterpiece and BBC One are working together on an six-part "event adaptation" of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables...
What happens next
The trailer is out for the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, which will take the series in a new direction now that they've covered the material in Margaret Atwood's book. I didn't watch the first season (because creepifying misery isn't my jam), but...
Renegades, by Marissa Meyer
I've been reading Marissa Meyer's work for a long time. She got her start writing fanfiction, then wrote a series of fairy tale adaptations, then followed those up with an origin story for a famous villain...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Renegades, by Marissa Meyer
This week's Book Giveaway is Renegades, the first book in a new series by the Lunar Chronicles' Marissa Meyer. I was never as emotionally invested in the Lunar Chronicles as I hoped to be, but I'm assuming this new series won't be so visibly cobbled together from outside sources (specifically, fairytales and Sailor Moon), so that might help. A full review will be posted later this week...
No, no, no
The trailer is out for the upcoming miniseries adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and it looks perfectly miserable. I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch this, but I guess it's targeted at people who just can't get enough of Cumberbatch playing insufferable rich characters...
Pre-teen Holmes
According to Deadline, Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown has signed on to star in a movie adaptation of the popular Enola Holmes mystery series, about the crime-solving baby sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes...
Where's Little My?
There's a Moomin-themed children's hospital opening in Finland later this year, and the official Moomin website has some early pictures of the decor. Sadly, I don't see any images of my favorite character, Little My, but...
First Riverdale, now Sabrina
According to Pajiba, the creators of Riverdale are planning a 20-episode-long spin-off series about Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Kiernan Shipka (of Mad Men fame) has signed on as Sabrina, and they will be basing their storyline on the comic line...
Who knew?
There's a review up on the New York Times website of the new Amazon TV anthology series Electric Dreams, based on the short stories of Philip K. Dick. The showrunners seem taken aback by how difficult (and expensive) it was to cram the complexity of their material into 10 hour-long segments, but...
Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, by Melissa de la Cruz
I understand that successfully adapting Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a modern setting is a tall order. You can recycle the basics of the romantic plot—arrogant man, spirited woman, misunderstandings, self-discovery—pretty easily, but most of the book's nuance doesn't translate. (The stakes are not the same when Elizabeth has the option of ditching her family and getting a job.) But...